I
believe that movement is the original seed from which we become human and know
ourselves as humans within this world. We
lose that connection throughout life in many different ways from the patterns
and habits of daily life, coping with stress and fatigue, and through periods
of time when we’re
merely “surviving”.

I
began Beloved On The Earth as a
support for reconnection within myself and others through Somatic Movement. Somatics is the study of the living body with
a holistic focus on mental-physical-spiritual-emotional health. Within somatics, subjective experience is
considered essential to our objective knowledge of ourselves and the world.

Even
though we move all the time, it seems that movement is often taken for granted.
Just as each one of us is unique and
multi-faceted, so too is our individual movement vocabulary. It’s a languaging I continue
to explore and use in communicating with my clients, as well as in connecting
back to my body's original seeds. As I
pause in my writing in this moment and notice my body, I feel my eyes straining
ever so slightly towards the page, chin jutted forward, shoulders rolled inward
towards my chest. In so doing, I realize
that I hardly feel the rest of my body at all, especially my feet. As I notice my disconnection, I ease back a
little from the page in front of me. I
feel my breath move more freely in my chest. This may be a momentary disconnection of body
and mind that I have just experienced, yet weeks and years of not noticing what
is going on can become rigid and unyielding patterns.

From a
young age, I began to categorize and compartmentalize my body-mind-spirit by
calling upon different parts in service of various responsibilities, needs and
objectives. My early training in
classical ballet, with its rigid rules, hierarchical systems and perceptions of
body further shaped how I moved and my awareness of that movement.I
eventually became a professional dancer and freelance artist in Philadelphia,
PA with an intense schedule of creating-producing new work, rehearsing,
performing, and teaching classes eight to sixteen hours a day, seven days a
week, for multiple companies.

Several
injuries along the way slowed down my performance schedule, so I added studies
in anatomy and kinesiology plus certification in personal training to my daily
schedule. I wanted to better understand
how to avoid injuries created by misalignment and unhealthy habitual movement
patterns so I could return to performing with my usual intensity as soon as
possible.Even as I was studying the body and working
with the body, I kept ignoring the cycles of rest and non-doing so imperative
in repairing and nourishing my whole being.

Working
with clients to better understand and heal their chronic pains and unsupportive
movement patterns expanded my own perceptions. Our experiences together taught me that the
linear and pre-scripted rules that are often touted as "solutions"
often became another way in which we compartmentalize ourselves. It was a
recurring theme in my life. Combine
perpetual motion, chronic intensity, and constant end-gaining, and many aspects
of myself were lost in the process. Even
moments of success became buried and forgotten.

My
physical patterning was also indicating a deeper emotional suppression. I desired a fuller and more integrated
self-knowing which would help me to better understand the possibilities through
which each one of us can move, create, and experience life in relationship to
self and the world around us.

I
moved to New York City, still nursing several injuries yet maintaining a very
active schedule of personal training, dancing, and attending graduate school at
NYU Tisch Schools of the Arts.Unfortunately, the years of abusing and repeatedly driving my body as if
it were a mechanical sum of parts, finally broke me down into immobility and
disrepair.Despite years of intense
training, my body no longer consistently responded to any of the directives
that my mind gave it. I was treating my body as if my mind were an external
authority that could commandeer its every movement and response.

I
found myself at a personal and professional crossroads. On one path, the authoritative voices of
choreographers and teachers directed me to keep going, telling me that there
were numerous others who would gladly take my place if I didn’t want
to dance enough to “just push through the pain.” On the other path, voices
inside me were crying out, begging me to listen to my inner knowing of
movement, creativity and possibility in order to break my chronic cycles and
feel whole again.

I
realized that the path to healing would be through a greater sense of
self-awareness and essential to that path was time spent listening more deeply
to my body's inner rhythms.I began by
simply paying attention to the pain and from where it seemed to be emanating. What are the variances in intensity?Is it directly related to a physical
activity? Is there an addition of mental/emotional stress gripping my system?

Patterns
began to emerge as I listened to the nuances of what pain, limitation, and
isolation felt like in my body along with my internal response to them.From there I began to make different choices
about how I cared for my body as those patterns revealed themselves: resting at
moments where I used to just push through sensations of pain or taking deep
breaths to create spaciousness and ease when mental/emotional stress began to
twist and grip my body. These simple and
slow processes required an immense amount of attention and commitment, yet were
the beginnings of a deeper listening to the internal sensations of my body as
it moved and was in dialogue with my outer world.

As my
attention to self-care shifted, so did the ways in which I offered my services
to others.In the midst of the chaos of
life, sometimes changing your relationship to familiar patterns of place and
time opens new ways of perceiving self.I offer myself and others time and space for this exploration during
annual retreats to Costa Rica, as well as in daily life by creating safe, nourishing
environments with in-studio sessions. It
is in the studio where I experience the potency of daily rest and rejuvenation
offered in a space dedicated to non-judgmental exploration. During this time, my clients and I discover
and develop a customized movement language unique to the living organism that
is our time together.

The
structure of the sessions truly depends upon the comfort and interest levels of
the client which develops over time starting with a six-week introductory
period getting to know what structures may best support our time together.Our movements together can be a form of
physical therapy, dance/yoga/pilates or part of an emotional and spiritual
expression embodied through movements such as reaching, arching, spiraling, and
breath/sounding.

There
is also a time for rest, release work, and ongoing check-ins, during which we
allow our nervous systems to slow and assimilate new information.This conscious break provides a much-needed
shift in a previously rigid and unsupportive pattern.Often this rebalancing releases fluidity and
an enlivening of once dormant interests.These newfound expressions are part of an organic process that tends to
be slow, nuanced, and cyclical. Additional support may be offered through
resources such as an acupuncturist, chiropractor or even another somatic
movement educator.

As I
engage in the movements and responsibilities (response-ability) of my daily
life, it is essential for me to attend to my own inner rhythms even as I meet
with others.This involves an ongoing,
silent level experiencing, allowing me to better care for myself and therefore,
be able to provide the resources needed to support others during their journey
of exploration, questioning, discovery, and challenging perceptions of self,
others, and the world around us.

One
way I re-engage with myself in the world is through photographing nature.It inspires me to perceive my inner
biological landscapes in new poetic forms. Winding streams become veins revealing the
qualities and movements of nourishment. The
rugged rock of mountains shows me the strength of my bones. I see movement everywhere in nature, such as
the patterns of wind shaping the growth and direction of trees. I observe and wonder: how does my breath
influence the shape of my body?

As I
feel myself alive and in resonance with the world around me, I dive deeper into
my own creativity and meet with my body’s original seeds of
movement and of knowing in order to survive. Each of us, in our unique moving
bodies, has our own stories of pain, survival, perception and possibility. Thank
you for your presence here.